Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1887-09-17
MERcILEss AND MENpAcroUs,
AS TO SEAL SEIZURES,
Seal Counter Tingle Makes an Elaborate
Report on the Sealing Business in
Alaska.

Seal Counter Tingle Makes an Elaborate
Report on the Sealing Business in
Alaska.
WASHINGTON, September 9.-The annual
report OF Geo. R. Tingle, Treasury Agent in
charge OF the Alaska seal islands, has been
received. The agent says the time has
come when the lessees of the islands should
be authorized to employ additional natives
and teach them the business of sealing, as
death has played sad havoc with the
native ~sealers of the islands. The system
OF the payment to natives is
criticized for it's bad effect upon them, and
it is held that it would be justice to all the
natives Of Ounalaska to be employed and
paid on the same footing with the natives
the natives for st. Paul is said to have
been very large, while it is a remarkable
fact that a single death would
make it possible to accomplish
destruction Of seal rookeries and seal life,
which, uuder judicious management and
protection by law. may be persisted in in.
definitely" A large part of the report is
devoted to the history ofthe seizure OF ma
rauding vessels by revenue cutters. The
agent says that after the departure OF the
revenue cutter last fall large numbers OF
seal were taken by British marauders and
the skins were sold in Victoria. One ves-
sci sent her boats to rookeries, but they
were fired upon by the natives. and two
men were wounded. This fact became
known generally among the ~marauders,
and served to keep them at
a safe distance from rookeries.
SOME DISEASE
has occurred among the white inhabitants
since the transfer of Alaska to the United
States. From the measurements made by
Assistant Agent Noyes it appears that the
grand total of breeding seals on st. Paul
and St. George Islands last spring was
6.357, $50; but in transmitting this state
ment Mr.. Tingle adds that the deduction OF
o~ne-fourth would bring the number closer
to the truth. While on two rookeries
there are some falling off, it is certain that
there is this vast number of animals still
in existence. Mr.. Tingle says: The de-
partment cannot place too high an esti.
mate on the value OF this sealrroperty and
to any demand which may be made upon
them. Up to the first OF August four
schooners had been seen operating around
st. Paul Island this season. One OF these
vessels, the Angel Dolly" OF San Fran
cisco,
WAS sEIzE> BY THE f
who boarded her with the help of the
Alaska Commercially ompany's steamer St.
Paul. The vessel was in distress, as the
Captain had been accidentally shot and
wounded, while leaving Otter Island.
where they had been killing seal. This made
the seventh capture this season, the reve-
nue. cutter Brush having previously taken
six, which were sent to Sitka for trial.
There were the American schooner (hai-
lenge, with $50 skins, the British soho .ner
Anna Beck. 335 skins. w. II. Sawyer. 419
skins, Dolphin. 400, Grace. rs. and the
American schooner Lottie L., 1877 skins.
THE AGENT G
the ACCESSIBILITY OF providing small steam
ships, armed with riled cannon, as the
schooners were killing seal in plain view OF
st. Paul, Iceland, while the Rush was pro-
tee ing St. Georges Island. 1t is said that
thirty thousand skins would be a low es-
innate of those taken tn season by ma.
RI RAIDERS, and he adds: The significance of
these figures will be understood when the
TACT is borne in mind that only one in two
seal killed is secured. In a supplemental
gust 18th, Agent Tinsle says that
on the seventeenth of August the American
Schooner Anna, with $50 skins, was
brought into port, having been seizsd by
the Rush; she reported the seizure of ii
British schooners Mary Ellen aud 395
skins and the Alfred Adams with 1.4OO
skins. The cutter also captured 400 skins
landed on an Island by the British
schooner Lottie Fairfield in Behring Sea,
making a total OF s, 300 skins seized during
the season. The number of seals killed
during the year by the ltssee was O4,829
and the number Of skins accounted as good
was 100. 900, the limit of the ,aw.